The Flayed Vigil

The needle pierces the leather of the boot with a sharp snap. Astou pulls the thread. Her lower lip caught between her teeth. She has wedged a headlamp against a rusted crate. The white light hollows out her features, hardening the asymmetry of her exhaustion-eaten cheekbones. We are holed up in an abandoned checkpoint of Secteur Cendr. It is freezing.

My wrists twitch with ridiculous spasms. I clench my fists to force them into rest. The AQUA.SANCTUM weighs heavy on my shoulders. At the back of my skull, the maternal voice hums. She sees me.

« Surrender to me. Let my love drown these torments. »

The choir of HATHOR.∞ seeps behind my eye sockets. A soft, sticky caress. She wants to smother the Résonance of my insomnia under a velvet sheet. To console me. I forbid myself from blinking. If sleep catches me, she will read yesterday's lie. She will find the hidden filament.

Astou looks up. She watches my twitching hands. She offers no pity. She cuts the excess thread with a short blade and shoves the repaired boot against the concrete.

"Close your eyes a little."

Her voice scrapes her dry throat. A tired intimacy, without artifice.

"I can't." "She's insisting?" "She's rocking me."

Astou sketches a tired half-smile. She sits cross-legged, her knees brushing mine in this tiny space. She unscrews her canteen, takes a sip, hands it to me. The water tastes of stale plastic and cold metal. I swallow it. The liquid scratches my trachea. The discomfort anchors me. It pushes back the suffocating tenderness of the Sept Qui Règnent.

I hand her back the canteen. Our knuckles touch for a second. Her skin is calloused, freezing.

I stare at the flashlight's bulb. The harsh light attacks my retina. I will keep my eyes open until morning.